What does it mean to be bold? To be better than you were the day before? Google’s BOLD Internship is an 11-week internship designed to provide exposure into the technology industry for students who are historically under-represented in this field. However, the program isn’t just about work experience, it’s about growing as a person and befriending some of the coolest people you’ll ever get to meet at the same time.
My journey to BOLD was a product of circumstance. As a freshman in college, I was looking for something meaningful to do in the summer and I came across the inaugural Google BOLD Immersion program. As an 18 year-old, the tech world was virtually unknown to me. I did know however, that any opportunity with Google, is an awesome one. Even though I was intimidated by the odds, I gave it a shot anyways and applied.
No one was more surprised than me when I actually received an offer to participate in the program. BOLD Immersion builds pipeline for the BOLD Internship Program, and from there I was fortunate enough to get selected for the summer internship at the Google headquarters in Mountain View. This summer 175 students (including myself) are interning at Google across nine offices in the US and Canada as a part of BOLD.
Working at Google really is surreal. From free massages to music festivals, and all the free food your stomach can handle, all of the perks you hear about working at Google actually exist. Google is a company that places a lot of trust and respect in their interns. One of my projects for the summer writing a post for the Official Google Blog about tools and products that students can use as the head back to school. That’s a lot of responsibility for an intern. I’ve also had the chance to sit in on lunches with top executives, work on external facing projects, and really learn what the word “Googley” means. I can’t really think of other internships in which enjoying a three-tiered cruise party in the Bay with endless food, drinks and dancing with the SVP of Knowledge (Alan Eustace) would be possible.
The BOLD program emphasizes the value diversity brings. They recruit students from the usual suspects like Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Harvard but interns come from a variety of universities like Spelman College, Rider College, and the University of Florida (where I go to school.) Your major is not as important as you are as a person and what you’ve accomplished. I’ve met interns here who own (and have sold) their own businesses, conducted research in Africa, and were even babysat by Whoopi Goldberg as a child. BOLD interns are an eclectic bunch that are incredibly smart but at no expense of personality.
There are no limits to the person you can become. I learned that at the BOLD internship.